


blue spurt of a lighted match

by goldfishtobleroneandamitie



Series: you're human, so am I [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, They fit so well though, Uncommon Pairing, butt watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfishtobleroneandamitie/pseuds/goldfishtobleroneandamitie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Éponine Thénardier has spent her life one of two ways: being bullied, or being rescued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blue spurt of a lighted match

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opabine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opabine/gifts).



> I  
> The grey sea and the long black land;  
> And the yellow half-moon large and low;  
> And the startled little waves that leap  
> In fiery ringlets from their sleep,  
> As I gain the cove with pushing prow,  
> And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
> 
> II  
> Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;  
> Three fields to cross till a farm appears;  
> A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch  
> And blue spurt of a lighted match,  
> And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,  
> Than the two hearts beating each to each!
> 
> -"Meeting at Night", Robert Browning

Éponine’s gone all her life inciting one of two reactions: bullying, or rescuing.  
  
Her father is the former. She’s been a punching bag since she could walk, an unwilling accomplice in his various schemes since before that. She has done unspeakable things at his order—stolen, lied, cheated, and fought for fear of his wrath—and has become hard in response. She did what was necessary for survival, and she refuses to apologize for it.

When she was eight, she stole a woman’s purse—an eighty-year-old woman, clutching the hand of a boy no older than herself, licking an ice-cream cone.  There were no credit cards in the pocketbook, only a twenty and a Blockbuster rewards card, plus a torn photo of two young people cradling the boy she’d seen holding the lady’s hand. Her father beat her for not meeting quota, while her mother looked on, screaming that she was worthless, that feeding her was only a burden on their family if she didn’t earn her keep.

Éponine cried that night, cried because she was cold and hungry and there was _screaming_ and _no one loved her_. Not even her mother.  
  
(she realizes later that that was the day that Cosette had been taken away for adoption, and that her parents had lost the stipend they received monthly for a foster child.)  
  
When she was fourteen, she lost her virginity. It was uncomfortable and strange, but she was just glad to get it out of the way before one of her fathers’ friends (who had already started leering) got ahold of her when she wasn’t quick enough to sidestep a wandering hand.  
  
Éponine cried that night too, cried because she hurt and the stories had lied and _no one loved her._ Certainly not the kid who she’d fucked behind the field house, who tasted like beer and smelled like pot and unwashed boy.

* * *

 

Marius is the latter. She met him when she was still an urchin, living off free school lunches (that she applied for herself) and garbage cans (though she’ll never admit that). He was the only one who wasn’t cruel to her about her thrift-store clothes—stolen, she couldn’t afford even that—and he helped her with her English homework. She paid him back in math tutoring in the library, and he never once tried to feel her up or look anywhere except her eyes and the textbook. She would have fallen in love with him for that alone.

It doesn’t help that his eyes are a beautiful, deep blue, and that he has freckles everywhere, even the backs of his ears, and he has hair that’s a deep auburn and sticks out everywhere no matter how much he tries to smooth it back. He looks at her with gentleness, something that she has never experienced before. Her soul grasps at it like a drowning man for air, slathering the feeling over itself in the hopes that it might patch the cracks in the crumbling plaster walls that make up her emotions and her spirit.

He asks her to prom, and she swallows her pride and gets a dress from one of those Donate My Dress sites, and they dance in the gym and get tipsy off spiked punch. He takes her back to his house and they watch _Monty Python_ , trading drinks out of a vodka flask as his grandfather snores upstairs. She thinks about kissing him, but even her drunk self isn’t so stupid—she associates that with people she hates, and what she has with Marius is pure and unsullied. So they cuddle on the couch as his grandfather snores upstairs, and his grandfather’s live-in nurse smiles when Éponine stumbles down from the guest bedroom at seven AM (it isn’t the first time this has happened). She cooks Éponine breakfast and she wanders out in heels and one of Marius’s sweatshirts over her chiffon dress that she’d loved in spite of herself. She’ll have to toss it, though, or sell it back to the Salvation Army, because if her parents see it, there’ll be hell to pay.

Not that she sees them much anymore. They’re basically homeless at this point, and she’s just hanging on until she graduates—not with honors or anything, but a high school diploma in hand is infinitely better than one without.

But Marius’s knight-in-shining-armor kick goes dark when he passes up Georgetown in favor of Amherst. He protests that it’s a good school, and it’s only after the deadline for acceptances has passed that he admits that he was afraid to leave her alone. She is furious and screams at him for being _stupid,_ because did he _really think_ that she _needed him?_ He shouts back that _she does,_ that he’s _afraid for her,_ and that she should _accept his help._ Her response? _Screw you._

She spent the next year and a half boozing, running the streets with the same kids that she tag-teamed tourists with, until Montparnasse gets knifed in front of her. It’s being splattered in his blood, dull brown in the streetlights like Marius’s hair at night, that snaps her out of her destructive path and sends her to the local community college to take barista classes. She will not be her parents, not bear children to run with the scum of the earth, to steal from old ladies and lose their innocence behind a dirty brick wall.

She resolves to find Gavroche and get him away while she still can.

* * *

 

She’s dragged herself out of that gutter now, has a job and a house (well, an apartment, two roommates, but it’s clean and she has her own room) and custody of Gavroche since she’s twenty-one and her parents have moved on to another city, another con, taking with them most of the fear and some of the darkness they injected into her life from birth. She works every day making chai no-whip lattes for insufferable hipsters, tucking tips into her cleavage since she earns most of them anyway and she’s saving up for a new pair of Nikes for Gavroche. He’s hitting his growth spurt early, at twelve, and she can’t keep him in clothes long or fast enough. At least she can buy from the thrift store now, rather than steal.

It’s a year after she gets off the streets, only two weeks after she officially got custody of Gavroche, that she realizes that the coffeehouse she works at also homes a social activist group that’s dubbed themselves “Les Amis de l’ABC” (apparently it’s a pun, despite the fact that closest thing they have to a Frenchman is an Irish kid named Courfeyrac). They keep her in tips, eye candy since they’re all disturbingly good-looking, and laughs--their leader, a golden Adonis who has a penchant for climbing on tables, rants eloquently about the plight of the widow and orphan as she stares at his butt. (It’s a very nice butt, you understand. Nice enough that she doesn’t mind cleaning the tables after he alights.) She’s joined in her appreciation by a dark-haired boy who keeps thinning his coffee with a clear liquid from a flask, and who meets her eyes as they mutually stare once. She smiles wickedly, he blushes, and they go back to staring.

His name’s Grantaire, and when he approaches her after that particular session, they end up going out drinking, getting smashed, and she listens to him rant about Enjolras’s simultaneous perfect and frustrating nature, takes him home and tucks him into bed, then cooks for him the next morning (thankfully Gavroche is at a friend’s). They exchange numbers and become drinking buddies, and she receives the added benefit of being introduced to the entirety of the Amis.

There’s Courfeyrac, the aforementioned Irishman who hits on her as soon as they are introduced before being cuffed by the man holding his hand, who introduces himself as Jehan. He has hair as long as hers, looped into a fishtail braid with tiny flowers along it. It takes her a moment to adjust to the decidedly male features and body underneath the flowered pants and lavender sweater, but he's babbling about how haiku-worthy her coffee is before she can think about it too hard.

The apparent third in the lead trio is Combeferre, a lanky giant with wavy blond hair, rimless glasses, and an affinity for flannel. He goes nowhere without a textbook in hand and four more in a JanSport, and is often the one to, with a murmured word, curb the enthusiasm of either Enjolras or Courfeyrac in turn.

The list goes on: There’s Joly the hypochondriac, who disinfects table, chair, mug, and plate before sitting down; his boyfriend Bossuet, who’s spilled more coffee than is feasible economically or logistically; and their (mutual?) girlfriend Musichetta, who’s seated in one of their laps more often than not and is the most beautiful woman that Éponine’s ever laid eyes on. Bahorel’s the loudest of them all, and is usually the one to lead the charge to the bar across the street when the manager finally kicks them out of the coffeeshop.

Bahorel is usually accompanied by Feuilly, and it’s Feuilly that catches her eye. (can she help it if she has a thing for redheads?) She’s struck originally by his superficial resemblance to Marius. He’s shorter, only a bit taller than her, and his hair is a fiery red rather than the darker auburn she’s used to, but the freckles are the same, and the inability to smooth his hair.

The difference that captivates her, though, is the eyes. Where Marius’s are a pretty and transparent blue, Feuilly’s are the darkest, most unreadable brown she’s ever laid eyes on. He always tips well, and when they bump hands in the process of exchanging coffee for money his hands are too rough for a student’s—he clearly works for a living, and it’s probably manual labor, judging from the way he fills out his shirts (she did say they were all ridiculously good-looking). He’s a moderating voice when he chooses to speak, advocating a safety net for those in need but providing a more practical financial outlook on Enjolras’s grand plans to save the world. She can respect that; he’s more down-to-earth than even Combeferre, who as a medical student can’t help but be infected by Enjolras’s save-the-world fervor, overriding his more levelheaded nature.

He understands her in a way the others don’t, and when she expresses interest in the Amis’ weekly meetings, he’s the one to invite her to come out from behind the counter and participate, since all their regulars clear out of the tiny shop when Enjolras starts talking. He’s also the one to invite her to the Café Musain, apparently their usual base on university campus. What they had been doing at the Corinthe, which is in the light-industry part of town, is beyond her; but her apartment is near campus, so she agrees and buses over the next time she isn’t working that night. She’s enthusiastically greeted. Courfeyrac gives her a once-over, then sends Feuilly a speculative look, which is pointedly ignored.

Universal health care is the topic of the week, with Enjolras advocating the rights of the common man, Grantaire spouting snark about addictions, and the two med school students expressing concern for the protections of doctors under the new laws. Éponine throws in her two cents of disdain for FreeClinics that are overcrowded and underserved, and Feuilly points out the national debt and expresses doubt that such an endeavor is economically feasible.

In the end not much gets done, since this is a law that a) most of the Amis support and b) has already been passed, but it leads to a rousing debate and everyone leaves in a good mood.

Honestly, she can’t remember most of it anyway. Feuilly had been sitting distractingly close, and he’d been absentmindedly been drawing patterns on the table all evening, migrating to her knee as he muses about Obama’s spending habits. The light trace of his fingers, never leaving her patella, make her wonder how a similar touch would feel elsewhere. When he offers to drive her home, she agrees before the offer can fully leave his (distractingly soft-looking) lips.

The ride home is comfortably quiet, but her knee feels naked since his hands are occupied with steering wheel and gearshift. She takes over the patterns, tracing the back of his hand as he moves from first to third gear (rather less smoothly than would be expected by a mechanic, which is what he’s identified himself as).

By the time he pulls into her apartment complex, she needs to be touched, dammit, so she grabs his hand off the gearshift and uses it to pull herself forward across the console, kissing him with the fervor of a long dry spell. He responds enthusiastically, to say the least, and it’s only when the steering column begins to dig uncomfortably into her side that she realizes they’ve been in the parking lot for an hour.

So she invites him up, and he’s pushes her up against the door so hard she can’t fiddle the lock open, and even though it’s the same position as that stupid boy behind the field house it couldn’t feel more different. Feuilly smells like motor oil and cinnamon and brown sugar and a little like sweat, but it’s a clean smell that she could bury herself in for ages. He tastes like black coffee and cinnamon Altoids, which she’s hated up till now, but at this moment is causing her synapses to fire erratically from her taste buds down to her toes.

When they finally get the door open, and she’s not sure if it could’ve been done more loudly, his enthusiasm morphs into something no less intense but much more leisurely. She could do this all night.

But it wouldn’t be her first choice, so she gets a fistful of his shirt and bodily drags him backwards (leaving aside the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to move him if he hadn’t wanted to go. This guy is _built.)_ He nearly tackles her onto the bed, leaving her thinking it’s been as long for him as it’s been for her—but he’s ever so considerate, leaving kisses along her neck and face as she buries her fingers in his hair. He plays her with more finesse than his callused hands would ever imply, and she falls apart in his arms.

When he finally moves down her body, she can’t remember her own name.

* * *

 

She wakes up around eight the next morning (for the third time; he’d woken her before dawn with lazy kisses and morning sex, then gone back to sleep), and he’s tucked into her side, flaming hair fanning out like a halo. It’s in such a state of disarray as to not seem possible, and she can’t help but feel oddly proud of her handiwork. This pride doesn’t go away as she takes stock of the hickeys that pattern his chest, neck, and biceps, or the ones on her own body that mirror them. She rolls out of bed and into his shirt, wrapping herself in his warm scent, and puts the coffee on.

He wanders out shirtless about ten minutes later, rubbing his eyes and holding his jeans on with one hand. She remembers the ease with which they came off the night before, exposing the trail of red hair that led from his navel to…

He distracts that chain of thought (or perhaps amplifies it) with the best hello she’s ever had, and then cooks her pancakes. It’s then she decides he’s a keeper.

He eats quietly, not meeting her eyes unless she catches his gaze from under his eyelashes. They share a secret smile and kick each other under the table, and she wraps a foot behind his calf as they eat.

He has neither bullied her—he allowed himself to be led—nor rescued her—he pushed her up against a wall and plundered her mouth, testing every boundary she’s given him. He does not flex her to see where she’ll break, nor does he handle her like she could shatter with the slightest pressure.

Maybe that’s why she melts at his touch.

When he asks her out again, this time on a ‘real’ date, she accepts without a qualm. 


End file.
